It’s
impossible to talk about the success of Buellton’s Hitching Post II restaurant
without mentioning an Oscar-winning film named Sideways.

“A flash of
celebrity,” chef-owner Frank Ostini calls it.

Rex Pickett,
the man who wrote the book that inspired the movie, has readily admitted that
it was time spent sitting and sipping at the wine bar at the Hitching Post II –
and a crush he developed on a waitress who once worked the floor there – that
aroused the now-famous focus on pinot noir that remains a boon to Santa
Barbara’s wine industry to this day.

It was a clear
boon for Ostini’s restaurant, too. “It
led to at least three years of nonstop, steady demand!” Ostini says with
evident amazement.

The movie’s
success, and the influx of customers it created for the Hitching Post II, did
lead the affable restaurateur to make key improvements to better meet the surge
in demand. “We finally fixed our air
conditioning and we got Open Table to manage reservations,” he says. But the core philosophies of his business –
the things that had already made his eatery a local’s favorite and a special
dining option for wine country tourists – remained the same.

“Our values,
and our kitchen, did not change,” insists Ostini, as he ponies up to the same
wood bar that once hosted Pickett. “I
told my employees that the movie was going to get people coming through our
door, but that we still had to give them a compelling reason to keep coming
back.”

Indeed, the
Hitching Post II has always been a culinary draw. The restaurant is now celebrating 25 years in
a business that can be as volatile and competitive as it can be lucrative and rewarding. To diners go the spoils, with a celebratory
$25 three-course menu that runs through February 12th and that
features Hitching Post II staples like prime sirloin steak, natural turkey
steak, smoked pork chop and market fresh fish.
A soup or salad starter and a hot apple sundae (think pound cake, hot
apples, vanilla ice cream and caramel) are also included.

Frank Ostini and Gray Hartley

The
quarter-century milestone is also being marked with the release of a special
wine, a 2010 pinot noir made with fruit from Rio Vista mainly – that’s the
closest pinot vineyard to the restaurant – as well as the celebrated Fiddlestix
Vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills. A
glutton for a full plate, it turns out Ostini is not only a chef, he’s also a
winemaker; the pinot-centric Hitching Post label, which Ostini produces with
business partner and cellar master Gray Hartley, is readily considered a
quintessential Santa Barbara wine producer.
The commemorative bottle sells for $25 at the restaurant (with generous
discounts for half-case and full-case buys) and is also offered at $7.50 a
glass. And wine buffs will notice something new on its label: the signature
Roman numeral II (two) appears next to the Hitching Post logo for the first
time.

That
distinction in nomenclature, in fact, is important. Ostini’s restaurant is actually preceded by
the original Hitching Post in the nearby town of Casmalia. That original steakhouse dates back to 1945
and was purchased by Ostini’s father – a cabinetmaker-turned-restaurateur – in
1952. “My parents worked harder at that
restaurant than I ever have,” says Ostini, humbly.

Ostini and
his brother, Bill, began working at the restaurant when their father died in
1977, and they bought it outright from their mother in 1981. Admittedly, there were creative differences
in the kitchen. “We wanted to take it in
different directions,” recalls Ostini. “Bill
wanted to keep things the same and I wanted to try new things: a more extensive
menu, offering soups made from scratch, featuring desserts and focusing on the
business from Southern Californians coming up here to visit wineries.” So Ostini took a leap of faith and opened up
his own place – Hitching Post II – along Highway 246 in Buellton, just off
Highway 101, in May of 1986. And the
rest is culinary history.

The original
Hitching Post is still thriving, with a lengthy, storied past and an avid
repeat clientele. But the Hitching Post
II has made its own claim on the valley’s food scene with a focus on quality
Santa Maria-style barbecue – fare grilled over an open oak wood fire – and a
penchant for infusing hearty, smoky flavors throughout the menu. “A third of our menu is beef,” says Ostini,
“but it’s 75 percent of what people order.”
The Hitching Post sources its meat from small packers in the Midwest –
Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas, mainly – and doles out cuts like prime top sirloin, New
York strip and filet mignon in a variety of portion sizes and made-to-order
temperatures. The menu also features
daily fish specials and popular renditions of fowl, like Texas quail, Shelton
chicken and duck breast. Its rack of
lamb and pork baby back ribs are big sellers.
And several appetizers are almost legendary, especially the grilled
artichoke, which is steamed and then cooked over that distinctive oak wood fire
before being seasoned with Ostini’s proprietary Magic Dust (a blend of three
peppers, onion, garlic and salt in secret percentages) and served with his
signature spicy smoked tomato mayonnaise.
The restaurant is specific about using the green globe artichoke variety
exclusively, which it sources from growers in Castroville.

Weekly reduced-price
specials have become popular, especially with locals. Steak sandwiches are featured on Tuesdays and
pulled pork sandwiches are headliners on Wednesdays. A $12.95 oak grilled burger reels in the crowds
on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; extras like Tillamook cheese, grilled
onions and avocado are $1 extra each.

The wine
list offers several Hitching Post wines, mostly pinots, by the glass. Interestingly, it also includes a Hitching
Post merlot, a response by Hartley and Ostini to the hit that the red grape
takes in the Sideways film; the main
character’s foul-mouthed critique of the wine has been credited with a
nationwide downturn in merlot sales that’s being felt to this day. “We felt bad,” Ostini admits. A mention of Sideways in the back label of this merlot (in defense of the grape)
is the only reference to the movie that the consumer will ever find on any
Hitching Post wine bottle or menu. “But
we were swimming upstream since 1986 with having pinot noir as the house wine
at a steakhouse,” asserts Ostini with a chuckle. “The movie definitely changed the stream’s
direction.”

Ostini also retooled
the restaurant’s wine list two years ago to bolster the inclusion of local
wines; they now make up 90% of the list.
“These wineries referring people to our restaurant was crucial for us
when we got started,” Ostini says. “I
don’t want to forget what got us here.”

But it isn’t
the food or the wine that Ostini points to when he speaks of the Hitching Post
II’s longevity and success. Aside from
loyal local, he credits his employees, many of whom shuffle back and forth
behind him in dinner preparation as he sits calmly at the bar. His restaurant, he says, is in good hands. “With this 25-year celebration, I’m really honoring
the everyday work all these people do,” he says with a noticeably genuine
tone. He makes special mention of staff
who’ve been there since day one, like server Kelly Fairbrother, sous chef Jesus
Montano and the restaurant’s executive chef, Bradley Lettau, who “taught me how
to cut and cook fish,” admits Ostini, “and who makes a bacon that’s just
incredible.” Eight kitchen workers have
been clocking in for more than 10 years.

Ostini
recognizes that each employee “spends a third of their time with and for the
Hitching Post II.” And as he plays with
the calculator function on his iPhone, he figures out that those who’ve been
with him since the doors opened in 1986 “have done their daily chores 6000 times! There’s a load of honor in that.”

These days,
Ostini wears the hat of general manager (a signature pith hat, at that) and
describes himself as a “systems guy” who ensures things run smoothly. Peak season for the restaurant is March
through October, and his duties after that are consumed by the annual grape
harvest’s rigorous demands on any winemaker.
January and February tend to be calmer, which makes the timing of the
current 25-year celebration ideal.

Ostini also
focuses on shaking hands and mingling with guests often. “We had this little miracle happen with the
movie, my picture was in like 500 newspapers,” he says, “so that’s become
important to a lot of the people who come here.”

The downturn
in the economy in 2008 has softened sales some; but, buoyed by the earlier Sideways effect, no jobs at Hitching
Post II have been lost. “The movie gave
us the opportunity to make a first impression all over again,” Ostini says, “and
we knew that if we did things right, people would keep coming back.”

Frank Crandall may well have been one of those lucky people
who lived two unique incarnations to their fullest.

Renegade Wines

For more than two decades, he was the go-to guy for many
Santa Barbara wine aficionados. As
founder and owner of Renegade Wines, he garnered a following for his expansive
selection of fairly priced bottles, his large wine storage space and a knack
for tracking down hard-to-find labels.
But a younger Crandall lived a completely different reality – a young
man’s rock and roll dream.

“You know, his brother in law was Alice Cooper,” says Jim
Fiolek, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Vintners Association and
longtime friend of Crandall. This
fascinating fact – that Crandall’s longtime wife, Nickie, was the sister of a
rock legend – wasn’t something a decidedly unassuming and humble Crandall would
readily mention. But his affiliation,
with both Alice Cooper and the world of rock and roll, extended well beyond
family ties.

Crandall taught himself to play electric guitar and bass a
young teen. Many a prepubescent’s dream,
but Crandall had a special knack. In the
1970s, he helped found a classic rock band, Jett Black, that would soon become
familiar with the roaring of crowd-swarmed stadiums by touring the East Coast
and opening for hot names like Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen. When he moved to Southern California, his skill
with strings got him headlining gigs on the wildly popular Sunset Strip and
with accomplished performers like Tony Childs and The Motels. And it was sheer talent that garnered him
songwriting awards alongside colleague Alice Cooper; the domestic connection
simply made the accolades sweeter.

It is quintessential irony that such an accomplished strummer
would be afflicted with arthritis.
Crandall’s was, in fact, especially severe, and it affected both his
hands and feet. Those who met him in his
later years undoubtedly noticed a visibly crippled hand whenever they went to
shake it. But Crandall always extended
it without hesitation, and always with a distinctive, infectious guffaw.

Necessity forced Crandall to look at a different career track. “His arthritis is why he gave up the bass,”
recalls Fiolek. But the wine business
proved more than mere employment; it became a veritable way of life for
Crandall. His new incarnation started at
the wine department inside Jurgensen’s, a now-closed but once-popular grocery
along Coast Village Road in Montecito.
“People would come by asking for rare wines and Frank would put together
these fabulous cases for them,” remembers Antonio Gardella, a fine wine
specialist with wine distributor Henry Wine Group, and Crandall’s longtime
supplier and friend. “Over the years, he
had this Rolodex of all these people and their wine wants, and when Jurgensen’s
closed, he took it with him.”

Briefly, he sold wine while he worked at the Wine Bistro,
another Coast Village Road landmark of yesteryear. But, as friend and Renegade business partner
Steve Wayne tells it, “he soon said to himself, ‘Hey, I could do this on my
own.’” His solo venture launched in 1990
from a wine warehouse near Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone run by then-wine merchant
and successful winemaker Chris Whitcraft.
But it wasn’t long before he found a quirky spot at East Gutierrez and
Santa Barbara Streets to open a wine shop that would be his own.

“The Wine Cask had just opened so a lot of people called him
nuts for going off on his own,” recounts Wayne.
“They called him a renegade.” The
name fit, and stuck.

Renegade Wines opened in a 1500-square foot, no-frills
storage space in an industrial complex.
Not a splashy spot, and not easy to find. “The speakeasy of wine shops” is how one
tourist recently described it after finally finding his way there, Wayne recalls
with a laugh. Indeed, committed wine
buffs have made their way there over the years, enough so that Crandall
expanded his shop twice – once around 1995 and again about six years ago – by
knocking down the walls to neighbor spaces that became vacant. He built his business by engaging customers
with genuine enthusiasm for wine and making a point to keep prices competitive. And he forged solid, long-lasting
relationships with purveyors like Gardella, who still recalls the largest order
Crandall ever placed with him: “25 cases of Dow’s Port,” he says.

Crandall also developed a keen palate for tasting wine. “We’d have distributors come in with samples
and Frank would take on sip and say, ‘Corked!’” recalls Wayne. “And after two or three more sips, you’d
realize, yeah, he’s right, this wine is corked.
And the distributor would tell us he’d been tasting other buyers on the
same bottle all day and they’d loved it!”
Crandall preferred whites, chardonnays in particular, and especially
those from the Corton-Charlemagne appellation in Burgundy. “On special occasions, the bottle he’d open
all the time was the Louie Latour,” remembers Wayne.

Today, Renegade Wines is a nearly 5000-square foot shop with
a burgeoning selection that Crandall regularly updated for his customers
online, at www.renegadewines.com. Most of the space is, actually, home to
temperature- and humidity-controlled lockers for wine storage that are under
24-hour video surveillance. Budding
collectors have smaller eight-case lockers to rent; serious connoisseurs can
choose spaces that hold close to 600 cases.
The store’s total storage capacity is more than a quarter-million
bottles. Renegade obtained a license to
hold monthly tastings four years ago, which has also helped bolster business.

When Crandall passed away on December 29th, it
came as a surprise, a shock even, for many who knew him. “I had no idea he was that sick,” says
Fiolek. Par for the course, perhaps, for
a man who wore humility on his sleeve.
Wayne says the 64-year-old ended his daily visits to the wine shop in
May of last year, a victim to health complications wrought by cancer. But his spunk managed to survive. “He was still cracking jokes last time I
spoke with him on the phone,” says Wayne, “about three or four days before he
died.”

Wayne worked with Crandall at Renegade Wines for 10
years. He is hoping to buy Renegade
Wines outright. For now, he says the
store is still very much open for business.

For Fiolek, the few days since Crandall’s passing have
spurred memories of both wine and rock and roll. Turns out, the man who successfully lived two
incarnations found a way to perfectly, wonderfully – but briefly – enjoy the
two together. The launch of Renegade
Wines in 1990 coincided with the formation of a band of Santa Barbara-based
winemakers and wine aficionados called “H2S”; the formula for hydrogen sulfide
was a tongue-and-cheek title equating the chemical compound’s notoriously
stinky rotten-egg smell to the purported talents of the band members, which
included Fiolek and Whitcraft, among others.
“Our first gig was [winemaker] Fred Brander’s 40th birthday
party in October of 1990,” remembers Fiolek.
Crandall was the rock band’s bassist for about three years, until the
debilitating pain from arthritis won out.

“But Frank always played through the pain, had this fierce
look in his eye, just kept it going, kept it going, and always kept our rhythm,
and made sure things always fell into place,” recalls Fiolek. “So he was a lot like the instrument he
played: steady, and always kept the beat going.”

About Me

Welcome to the online home of Gabe Saglie. Gabe is Senior Editor for Travelzoo and a respected travel contributor for dozens of TV news programs and national shows. Gabe is also a longtime wine and food writer based in Santa Barbara, California, where he lives with his wife, two boys and daughter.